A new benchmark has been launched by the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) to enable measurement and comparison of big data systems.

According to the TPC, the benchmark – TPCx-HS – enables measurement of both hardware and software including Hadoop Runtime, Hadoop Filesystem API compatible systems and MapReduce layers.

TPCx-HS is a major achievement for two reasons, noted Raghunath Nambiar, chairman of the TPCx-HS committee, and a distinguished engineer at Cisco. It is the first vendor-neutral benchmark focused on big data systems – which have become a critical part of the enterprise IT ecosystem. TPCx-HS is also the first Express-class benchmark issued by the TPC.

Express-class benchmarks have been introduced by the TPC in response to high demand for a turnkey alternative to enterprise-class benchmarks, which have advantages but are also more time-intensive and costly to run. As an Express Benchmark, the TPCx-HS is available via the TPC website in the form of a downloadable kit.

Big Data was identified as a priority area for vendor-neutral benchmark development during last year’s Technology Conference on Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking (TPCTC).

TPCx-HS can be used to asses a range of system topologies and implementation methodologies, in a technically rigorous and directly comparable, vendor-neutral manner. The specification is available online – via the TPC’s website at www.tpc.org/tpcx-hs.